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Borje Holmberg - Distance Education in Essence PDF
Borje Holmberg - Distance Education in Essence PDF
Volume 4
Brje Holmberg
Herausgeber:
Dr. Ulrich Bernath
Prof. Dr. Friedrich W. Busch
Prof. Dr. Detlef Garz
Prof. Dr. Anke Hanft
Prof. Dr. Wolf-Dieter Scholz
Publisher:
ISBN 3-8142-0875-7
Contents
Series Editors' Foreword..........................................................................5
Preface.....................................................................................................7
1
Prolegomena .....................................................................................9
Methodology ....................................................................................47
Organisation ....................................................................................63
10 Summing up ....................................................................................89
References.............................................................................................93
Appendix:
The evolution of the character and practice of distance education.......107
Index ................................................................ ...................................115
Preface
After many years of work in distance education I am somewhat puzzled
to find that at the beginning of the twenty-first century there is on the one
hand much talk about distance education, most of it favourable, on the
other hand little understanding of its character, theory and practice. This
booklet is meant to describe todays distance education, to elucidate the
basic thinking behind it and to do so as briefly as possible.
Some work I have been doing since the end of the 1990s for a Masterof-Distance-Education programme of the universities of Maryland and
Oldenburg has sharpened my awareness of the need for a succinct
identification and explanation of the most important aspects of distance
education as practised at the beginning of the new millennium. This to
some extent lies behind the following ten short chapters. I owe the title of
this book to one of initiators of this programme, my colleague Dr. Ulrich
Bernath of the University of Oldenburg in Germany.
For my presentation I have drawn on much literature and research, that
of others and my own. I constantly provide readers with full references to
these sources and also in some cases refer to my personal experiences.
To elucidate the background and historical development of distance
education an article on its evolution written by me and published in
Open Learning in 1995 is added as an appendix. The permission of the
publishers of that journal to reprint this paper is gratefully acknowledged.
Brje Holmberg
August 2001
Prolegomena
Preliminaries
Distance education is nothing new. In its early stages and long into the 20th
century the practically only media available to it was print and the written
word, and so it was adequately called correspondence education. As
various other media began to be used this term was felt to be inadequate
and was changed into distance education, officially so since the early
1980s. In 1982 the UNESCO-affiliated International Council for Correspondence Education changed its name into the International Council for
Distance Education (now the International Council for Open and Distance
Education).
From its inception distance education has been characterised by
mediated subject-matter presentation and mediated interaction between
students and tutors. These two characteristics are, in fact, the two
constituent elements of distance education, the former representing oneway traffic from the supporting (teaching) organisation to the students,
the latter two-way traffic between the two. Peer-group interaction between
students is an important but fairly late addition.
Even if the earliest mentions of distance-education activities date from the
end of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century it was towards
the end of the 19th century that it became firmly established. At that
time several large correspondence schools were founded and distanceeducation methods were then first applied to university education. I refer
to what I have written about these early stages of distance education in
my book Growth and structure of distance education (1986).
Prolegomena
Since then distance education has developed into a much applied and
frequently praised mode of education with millions of students in various
parts of the world. It has above all been applied to secondary and
tertiary education as well as to occupational and professional training.
The single-mode distance-teaching universities have attracted much
attention, particularly the Open University in the UK. At the beginning of
the third millennium the use of modern information and communication
technology strongly influences the practice and perhaps even the
reputation of distance education.
When in 1960 I published my first monograph on distance education
very little had been written about it and the research into it so far done
was largely limited to case studies and empirical comparative studies of
distance vs. traditional education. This situation has gradually and
strikingly changed. As late as the 1980s it was possible for individual
scholars to follow and take the measure of practically everything written
on the subject (cf. my international bibliography of 1990 and Dellings
German bibliography of 1977 with additions). The situation at the beginning
of the 21st century is very different. At a great many universities and
other research organisations a wealth of theses, articles and research
reports concerning distance education are continuously being published.
New contributions to the study of distance education now appear
practically every month. The periodicals wholly devoted to distance
education bear witness to this. Among them can be mentioned Open
Learning (UK), Distance Education (Australia), The Journal of Distance
Education/Revue de lducation distance (Canada), The American
Journal of Distance Education (U.S.A.) and the Indian Journal of Open
Learning (India). Regrettably the publication of Epistolodidaktika, the
journal of the European Association of Distance Learning, founded in
1963, was discontinued at the end of 1998.
10
Prolegomena
11
Prolegomena
Prolegomena
13
Prolegomena
14
Prolegomena
Prolegomena
16
Prolegomena
17
Prolegomena
18
Prolegomena
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Prolegomena
evident already from the figures mentioned about the so-called mega
universities above. Only in Europe we have to count with at least some
three million distance students. A European commission census found
some 2 600 000 fee-paying distance students in 1996 (Keegan, 1996,
p.3).
Among fairly recent studies of relevance in this context should be
mentioned those by Ommerborn & Schuemer (1999 and 2000) of two
special target groups, on the one hand handicapped people, on the
other hand prisoners. For both these categories non-contiguous study is
as a rule the only option open.
In general terms it nowadays seems difficult to describe distance students
as belonging to clearly definable target groups. Distance education is
suitable for anyone capable of intellectual learning and prepared to work
individually, from elementary stages to advanced degree studies; it above
all attracts adults with jobs, families and social commitments. For reasons
of socialisation conventional schools and universities are usually
preferable for youngsters. There are highly appreciated applications of
supervised distance education for children and youngsters, however
(Holmberg, 1973; Tomlinson et al., 1985; Woodley, 1986). Naturally to
some, for instance the groups investigated by Ommerborn & Schuemer as
mentioned, distance education may not be the preferred choice but
nevertheless an acceptable possibility.
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As evident from what was said above in Chapter 1 about single-mode vs.
dual-mode universities the specific characteristics of distance education
can be applied to different degrees. If it is regarded as an innovation some
applications could (in Ross terminology) be described as instances of
extra-paradigmatic innovation, whereas others would be innovations
within the accepted paradigm (Ross, 1976). The latter type of distance
education is regarded simply as a substitute for education face to face
and is usually characterised by classes and paced study programmes.
Leslie (1979) describes a system of this kind which insists on fixed
starting times for a course, a fixed schedule of assignments, a fixed
duration of a course, students being treated as members of a class,
although that class is distributed geographically and having to submit
assignments and write examinations on a schedule (Leslie, 1979, p. 36).
Systems which allow and encourage students to make their own timetables, study when their work and family situations allow, submit their
assignments whenever it suits them, consult tutors (on the telephone,
by e-mail etc.) when they feel a need for this support and register for
examinations when they feel ready for them are examples of extraparadigmatic innovations. In systems of this kind (e. g. Hermods or the
Private Fernfachhochschule Darmstadt) students can begin, interrupt
and complete the study as it suits them or as work, health and family
conditions allow. This type of distance education paradoxically on the one
hand serves mass education, on the other hand is based on wholly
individual learning (which does not prevent optional seminars being
offered). This is part of the background of Peters description of distance
education as sui generis and well accords with his much-discussed view
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completed the parts of the course which are the prerequisites for each
seminar. In actual practice this causes no difficulty.
On various applications of information and communication technology to
distance education see Bates (1995). Both more general and more
specific discussions about media in distance education are further to be
found in Chapters 5 (Media for subject-matter presentation) and 6 (Media
for student-tutor and student-student communication) of my book Theory
and practice of distance education (1995), which was written before the
computer had radically changed the media situation, however. The use
of computers for student-tutor interaction, for counselling purposes and
in the administration of distance education are nevertheless briefly
looked into in Chapters 6 and 7 of that book.
When students are on line they can communicate with the supporting
organisation not only on matters immediately concerning their learning but
also on administrative questions (the availability and distribution of course
materials, supplementary support, periods for any face-to-face sessions
and examinations, financial matters etc.). Various systems facilitating
this type of contact and also making student-student communication
constantly possible are in use.
There are a great number of further applications of information and
communication technology in distance education. Simulation of work
processes is one example. See further Rekkedal (1999) and Weidenfeld
(1999), e. g.
25
The relation of technology to distance education has - little surprisingly caused much debate. This discussion largely centres around the various
applications of the possibilities opened by the use of the computer.
Whereas computer conferences are usually seen as technological
innovations improving distance teaching and learning there are thinkers
who go much further. Garrison even claims that computer conferencing is
far more than a technique. Computer conferencing has the potential to
radically reshape learning at a distance (Garrison, 1997, p. 9). The same
author extols audio and video conferencing (Garrison, 1989 and 1993),
apparently because these media tend to make distance education more
similar to classroom teaching and learning (which to the present writer
implies no praise). In Peters (1998) there is an interesting discussion
about an assumed Europe-North America controversy behind the two
kinds of estimate:
While North Americans see distance education mainly as a
technological-organizational enabling of access to traditional
university teaching with the help of the latest technical media,
Europeans are interested above all in the pedagogical processing
and optimizing of teaching with the help of technical media,
whereby they deliberately remove themselves from traditional
forms of academic teaching. (Peters, 1998, p. 144)
In an earlier discussion about tele-conferencing Bates similarly states that
the the North American () assumption is that the traditional form of
group, face-to-face instruction is the preferred and most effective form of
higher education, at least, and that the closer distance education can
directly imitate this, the more effective distance education will be
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28
The background of the acceptability discussion is, inter alia, the fact that
- as already mentioned - not only established universities and schools
offer internet courses but also publishing houses and other companies
more concerned with money making and technology than with
education. When these call themselves universities the academic world
is challenged. That on the other hand the University of Phoenix, which is
a large-scale provider of internet courses, is a stock exchange company,
illuminates and complicates the situation. This is by no means seen as
an internal academic matter, but has been given much attention in the
press, above all in the English-speaking world, particularly North America,
but also elsewhere. Thus the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in Germany
in March 2000 printed an elucidating commentary on the present
American debate (Mejias, 2000), and about the same time the feelings of
uncertainty and academic repudiation of distance-education courses on
the net were reflected in a journal for university professors in Sweden
(Bjrck, 2000).
Organisations providing computerised educational services and using
the web are sometimes, particularly in North America, referred to as
distance-education schools or universities whether what they offer meets
the criteria of distance education as listed above or not. What they
provide seems often (as a rule?) to be little more than lectures and tests
on the screen and interaction with computer programmes, i.e. something
that can be described as a modernised version of the now discarded
programmed learning of the 1950s, around which a large industry has
been built up for the sale of various learning and testing materials (which
according to Schulmeister (2000) encourage cribbing rather than
education). If that is the situation in the first decade of the twenty-first
century when more than 160 virtual universities are active (Schulmeister
2000), it may well change for the better. We should be aware that as late
29
as around 1950 the now highly regarded regular distance education was
supposed - not always unjustly - to be in the hands of shysters. At the
present time the so-called virtual universities cannot indiscriminately be
counted as distance-teaching universities, however.
What is further queried is if a company or an institution of any other kind
which functions like this, which has no permanent academic staff (what
the Americans call faculty), and which in no way takes responsibility for the
academic freedom of the academics can be called a university of school.
The ownership of learning materials developed is also an important issue. If
the responsible academic is the owner, can he/she bring it with him or
her when moving to another institution? If the institution is the owner,
can it use the material without the participation or consent of its creator?
In such a context what remains of the university as a cohesive academic
unity and of its dignity and recognition?
A series of educational objections to so-called virtual universities have
been articulated by the President of the University of San Diego, who
claims that what they neglect are things like proper breadth and depth of
learning from courses sequenced logically into a curriculum and that
also missing are guided discussions that prompt students to reflect on
the values and ethical implications of issues and ideas (Alice B. Hayes as
quoted by Schulmeister, 1999, p. 76).
The questions and reservations thus brought to the fore are concerned
with the dangers of promoting degree mills. These dangers can be great,
small or non-existent depending on the policies of individual states and
authorities in recognising and awarding charters to would-be universities.
The representatives of distance education discussed in Chapter 1 do not
belong to the so-called virtual teaching institutions criticised. However,
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36
facilitate the teaching and learning process, local control, small class
size, rapport between teacher and learner and personalized learning
(Simonsen, Schlosser, & Hanson, 1999, p. 73). The last-mentioned
approach should be seen in relation to the quotations from Bates and
Peters in Chapter 1 and 3 on differences between European and North
American approaches to distance education.
The theory attempts that have been developed have, on the whole, met
with a good deal of reservation or rejection, which, however, has not
caused any recommendations about how better to develop and test
theories relevant to distance education. A well-considered study of the
problems arising from theorising on distance education has been carried
out by Greville Rumble (1992), however.
As one who has again and again grappled with theory attempts and is
prepared to face the negative reactions to be foreseen I suggest a
comprehensive theory including a characterisation of distance education,
an understanding of its underlying thinking, principles and tradition, a
predictive part based on these prerequisites and an explanatory approach.
It is from the conclusions of this theory that the methodology of practical
work is derived. The following wording draws on Theory and practice
(1995), an article in Open Learning of 1997 and other writings of mine.
The theory suggested
1. Distance education implies non-contiguous teaching and learning as
students and teachers need not, and for the most part do not, meet
face to face. In principle it is instrumental to individual study, but can
be adapted to group learning. Distance education is well suited to the
conditions of adults with jobs and social commitments who cannot
- or do not want to - take part in classroom activities or keep to a
prescribed time-table. It aims at benefiting from the expected maturity
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39
motivation promotion and retention; they are thus likely to pave the
way for success.
Feelings of empathy and belonging promoting students motivation
to learn and influencing the learning favourably can be developed in
the learning process independently of any face-to-face contact with
tutors. They are conveyed by students being engaged in decision
making; by lucid, problem-oriented, conversation-like presentations of
learning matter that may be anchored in existing knowledge; by
friendly non-contiguous interaction between on the one hand students,
on the other hand tutors, counsellors and other staff in the supporting
organisation; and by liberal organisational-administrative structures
and procedures.
Underpinning the theory
The four parts of the theory are related to the notions expressed in the
following five statements:
1. The historical and social background of distance education is adult
learning adapted to the conditions of people who because of work
and family life cannot give first priority to their learning, find it difficult
and/or disagreeable to take part in classes and follow time plans
unrelated to their private circumstances, or even wish to keep their
study entirely private as a confidential matter between them and the
distance-teaching organisation.
Early studies illuminating this situation are, for example, Flinck (1980),
Glatter & Wedell (1971), and Wedemeyer (1981). Cf. also my Theory
and practice (1995, pp. 12 14). It should be mentioned that special
applications of distance education adapted to children and schoolage youngsters also occur. See Theory and practice, Chapter 8.
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by the
Whatever value it may have or not have I feel entitled to call it a theory
as the requirements that it thus meets corresponds to those usually
expected of an educational theory.
I also claim that empathy as an instigator of predictions also gives it a
basis for understanding. It could, of course, be argued that empathy
plays a similar role in all kinds of education. The decisive point here,
however, is that the fact that distance education relies on mediated
presentation of subject matter and mediated interaction with tutors and
fellow-students and, on the whole, functions without face-to-face contacts,
makes it necessary for empathy to be explicitly made evident, whereas
in face-to-face situations a smile between two persons or the tone of a
comment may be enough for empathy to be shown. I thus claim that
regarding empathy as a typical basis of successful distance education
contributes to an understanding of its character.
45
I further claim that my theory to some extent even meets the Popperian
requirement of explanation. It has some explanatory power as it implies
a consistent view of effective learning and teaching in distance education
identifying a general approach on which various procedures can be based.
What above all characterises the theory and its hypotheses is their
stress on individual relevance, human warmth, emotional involvement,
personal approaches, ease of communication, frequent and undelayed
interaction. The insistence on personal relevance causes attention to
students fitting new subject matter and new problem solutions into their
existing cognitive structures. The warmth and emotional involvement
lead to emphasis on the development of rapport between students and
representatives of the school, university or other body responsible for
the teaching. That this body is regarded and described as a supporting
organisation is in tune with the empathy approach.
The theory approach thus developed and tested is based on a conviction
of mine, first expressed in a monograph of 1960, that conversation-like
interaction between distance students and their supporting organisation
promotes motivation, learning pleasure and study results.
To be worth its salt an educational theory must indicate accessible paths
to useful practice. Apart from what has already been said the exposition
of distance-education methods, media, and administration in the following
chapters will illuminate the practical application of the theoretical discussion
above.
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Methodology
47
Methodology
Methodology
49
Methodology
(Marton & Slj, 1976). Cf. the desired generative effect advocated by
Forsythe (1986) and quoted in the discussion of media choice below.
It is my contention that to serve learning in this sense the conversational
approaches inherent in my theory (and in Sparkes and Forsythes
recommendations, on which see below) are of decisive importance. They
contribute to reasoning by argument, to directing students attention to
what is important and engaging them intellectually and often emotionally.
What must not be neglected in any endeavour to favour deep learning is
the type of examination, if any, that follows on the completion of study. If
examinations can be passed simply as a consequence of learning a
number of facts, then only surface learning is encouraged. To cater for
deep learning as described examination tasks must require students to
explain, combine and draw conclusions. The latter type of examination
paves the way for students active participation in the conversational
illuminations of subject matter. (See further Morgan, Dingsdag, & Saenger,
1998).
Presentation of learning matter - one-way traffic
Choice of medium/media for subject-matter presentation
The media options open to todays distance educators for presentation
of learning matter are considerable. Apart from print, audio and video
recordings, films, radio, TV, and the simple presentation of texts on the
net, data files with possibilities for animation of graphics and independent
sound files offer new possibilities which are often attractive from the
points of view of accessibility and effectiveness. There is a wealth of
literature on modern information technology and its media. (See Bates,
1995, for example.) What medium or media are selected in individual
cases depends on the specific needs and circumstances of the situation.
50
Methodology
Methodology
52
Methodology
Methodology
short sentences, the use of the active rather than the passive voice, the
replacement of abstract nouns by verbs and frequent use of pronouns
facilitate reading (cf. Miller, 1951; Langer et al., 1974, Taylor, 1977;
Rowntree, 1986, and my discussion in Theory and practice of distance
education, 1995, pp. 88 - 96, of the contributions these and other
scholars have made).
It is sometimes found desirable that students studying printed courses
should be given the opportunity to work really independently. This
implies a free choice of learning objectives and possibilities to select
items of learning matter as they seem interesting and relevant to the
individual student. It is, in fact, possible, though seldom practised, to let
students on their own select learning objectives in that they are given a
choice between related course units, each provided with a detailed
description of the objectives it meets, which makes this choice possible.
Ljos & Sandvold (1983) describe such a procedure. So-called contract
learning goes far in this respect: on the basis of suggestions made by
students individual curricula leading to degrees are agreed. On this see
further Coughlan, 1980; Worth, 1982, and Weingartz, 1991.
There are also methods for allowing students to study in a non-linear way,
i.e. finding their own way through subject matter. Hypermedia and
hypertext systems, which let students browse and navigate freely in
learning material, printed and/or on the net, are of great interest to anyone
anxious to pave the way for independent learning and are to a limited
extent being used, but have in many cases caused difficulties in that
students, particularly those with faulty prior knowledge, have been
hindered rather than helped by the non-sequential learning. The term
hypermedia refers to the possible use of other elements than text (audio
and video).
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Methodology
55
Methodology
Methodology
given orally by tutors, to discuss problems face to face with tutors and
fellow-students. Some, but by no means all distance students, find this
more personal and effective than interacting with tutors and other students
non-contiguously, i.e. in writing, on the net and on the telephone although
computer conferencing, synchronous (real-time') and a-synchronous,
attracts many students. (See below Student-student interaction.) Several
of the distance-teaching universities run special study centres in which
face-to-face sessions and other possibilities for student-tutor and studentstudent interaction are provided. (On study centres in the age of information
and communication technology see Mills (1996).)
The practice of student-tutor interaction
The traditional form of student-tutor interaction is based on assignments
given in pre-produced learning materials, answered/solved by students
who submit their solutions to the supporting organisation where a tutor
reads, corrects and comments on them, after which they are returned to
the students. The work done by the tutors implies checking on students
results, but this is only a minor concern. Basically commenting on students
assignments is a teaching task. Tutors correct misunderstandings, direct
students attention to profitable approaches, suggest ways to overcome
difficulties, explain in detail why something is wrong or correct,
acceptable or not acceptable, and invite students to react to the comments
given. In the old correspondence schools as well as in modern distanceteaching organisations like the open universities this commenting has
been developed into extremely valuable student support.
If, as regrettably sometimes occurs, students assignments are merely
ticked off and awarded marks, unique opportunities to teach at a distance
are lost, students are deprived of support and the quality of the educational
activity provided is low. When the full potential of interaction by means of
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Methodology
58
Methodology
Completion rates have also been shown to correlate with turn-round time
(Rekkedal, 1983).
The expectations that students (with experiences of actual distanceeducation practice) have at the turn of the century are illuminated by
Stevenson (2000), who reports from an inter-European study that, inter
alia, most students expected contact about once a month and extensive
feedback on their assignments (p. 124). Gaskell & Simpson (2000) have
studied the expectations that Open University tutors have about students
wishes and compared these expectations with the wishes actually
expressed by students themselves. They report in table form as follows:
Priority
Mark promptly
Mark promptly
Understand problems
Understand problems
Explain grades
10
Explain grades
Methodology
There are indications that contacts with one tutor-counsellor rather than
with several representatives of the supporting organisations contribute to
the feelings of belonging and also to effectiveness (Rekkedal, 1985).
This tutor-counsellor represents the whole of the teaching-supporting
organisation and gets to know each of his/her students well, which is in
many cases important. Lack of insight into the students total situation
and the total teaching system may be an obstacle to giving maximum
support (Rekkedal, 1985, p. 9).
Student-student interaction
Before the introduction of information and communication technology it
was hardly possible for distance students actively to cooperate with one
another unless they met in person, i.e. if they took part in face-to-face
sessions. E-mail, the chat function on the net and computer conferencing
have changed this radically: today distance students frequently keep in
touch with other students, discuss problems and also interact socially.
(On this see Chapter 2 above, Distance education as innovation.) This
means that distance education relies on mediated subject-matter
presentation, mediated student-tutor interaction and mediated studentstudent interaction.
Computer conferencing is flexible and can occur at fixed times so that
students have immediate contact with one another. This synchronous,
real-time interaction is preferred by many, but is not always possible or
practical as it compels participants to reserve certain days and hours for
the interaction. These time constraints can be avoided by a-synchronous
interaction, which makes it possible for students to take part in discussions
at times that suit them, in the night, for instance. Instead of organising
a two-hour seminar at a time when all students must participate the
supporting organisation can invite students to make their contributions
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Methodology
Methodology
62
Organisation
warehousing
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Organisation
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Organisation
Organisation
than on teaching (p. 52) and that the course team format gives the
articulate, the domineering and the thick-skinned an influence out of all
proportion to their numbers or their merit (ibid.). This contribution gave
rise to strong objections. Thus Andrew Blowers, dean of the OpenUniversity faculty of social sciences, rejected the idea that the model of a
corporate, co-operative approach to teaching and learning would be
supplanted by the more individualistic, authoritarian approach adopted in
traditional university teaching (1979, p. 56) and claimed that the course
team is a flexible instrument for change and provides the creativity and
community on which our whole enterprise depends (p. 57). Considering
the question more than twenty years after this discussion there can be
little doubt that the course team has proved its worth. It is clearly
context-dependent, however (cf. Chung, 1997).
This does not mean that the course team is accepted without reservations.
There is a danger that the product of co-operative work gets an impersonal
character. The ways of address that I propagate for distance-education
courses (I suggest that you should now ) may not always be felt to be
a natural outcome of this co-operation, but can, of course, well be if an
editor is entrusted with the task of wording a course text in this way.
Monika Weingartz in a thought-provoking study of 1990, regrettably
available in German only, provides data and arguments which may make
us query whether the course-team model may risk impeding personal
approaches and contribute to knowledge being presented more as a
finished, ready-made product than as a complex of problems under
development. On the dichotomy problem learning vs. ready-made systems
identified by her see Weingartz (1981) and Holmberg (1995, p. 35).
Whether course teams of the Open-University type are relied on for the
development of learning materials or less sophisticated procedures
are applied, any distance-education organisation, school or university
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Organisation
Organisation
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Organisation
Organisation
usually develop courses for their own students only, perhaps less than
50 altogether. In the latter cases the course writer is, as a rule, identical
with the tutor, guides the study and usually also teaches face to face
during residential periods, which are sometimes but far from always
optional. The Australian University of New England in Armidale, New
South Wales, is often regarded as the prototype of the small-scale, dualmode type (Smith, 1979 and 1984). See further Bates (1995) and
Holmberg (1995, pp. 7, 141 - 142).
Typologies of distance education
Apart from the single-mode and the dual-mode distance-teaching
organisations it is possible to identify other types, such as service
organisations working on behalf of universities or other bodies awarding
degrees or certificates and networks of various kinds; Norsk Fjernundervisning in Norway and the Mauritius College of the Air (Jenkins 1997)
can be mentioned as examples of the last mentioned type.
While these three types of distance-education organisation can well be
seen as covering actual practice some further attempts have been made
from various viewpoints to develop typologies of distance education.
Keegan (2000) pays attention to on the one hand distance education for
groups of students, on the other hand individual students, and identifies
four models of distance-education organisations, viz. publicly owned
and run providers, distance-teaching universities, traditional universities
offering distance education, and private bodies doing this. Peters (1998,
pp. 157 - 214) lists and discusses eight distance-education models specific
to institutions. Schuemer (1988) made an interesting classification
based on purely educational, as opposed to organisational, criteria.
Other classifications have also been made.
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salient feature. It is motivation above all else which, despite physical and
general social and environmental problems, brings success. Attempts to
develop models for the study and reduction of student drop out have
been made. A critical investigation of these was carried out by Woodley,
de Lange, & Tanewski (2001).
On the basis of my many years of experience I dare claim that the most
favourable factor paving the way for motivated students success and
preventing dropout is empathy between the learning and teaching
parties, availability of immediate support and advice when difficulties
crop up, ease in consulting tutors and other subject specialists and
general feelings of rapport. Thus, again, I refer to my theory of distance
education as set out in Chapter 4.
Much has been written on evaluation principles, procedures and
experiences. I refer to Chapter 10 of my book Theory and practice of
distance education (1995), in which several authoritative studies are
referred to. It is no doubt correct to state that by now we have a pretty
good grasp of the potentials and outcomes of distance education.
Costs
A very special type of evaluation concerns its costs and cost-effectiveness.
It is possible to run distance education in a very economical way, working
with large numbers of students per course, thus benefiting from economies
of scale, and limiting the media offers to, for example, the written word
and e-mail. However, it is extremely difficult to lay down general principles
for how to judge the benefit of each component included in the distance
education provided in relation to its cost. We must presumably accept
that we can go no further than stating that distance education can, under
some circumstances, be more cost-effective than traditional education,
but that, on the other hand, no generalisable conclusion can be drawn
74
critical and lateral thinking, research and library skills. The relations of
distance education to this type of independence is by no means clear,
however.
Nevertheless there are many distance-education courses catering for this
type of far-reaching independence, some of them by making problems
rather than what we know about their solutions the starting-point (as
shown by Weingartz, 1980, e. g.). They may represent what is called
genetic learning, exemplified in Lehner (1979, pp. 76-77) by a presentation of gravitation starting out from the questions asked by Aristotle and
Galileo instead of from present knowledge. Weingartz study shows that,
while being by no means representative of most distance education, this
kind of independence is catered for internationally in a number of
courses offered.
Almost complete independence occurs in so-called contract learning,
which expects students themselves to suggest the objectives of the
course programme they have in mind, to develop a full plan for their
study, usually a plan for a complete unique degree including the types of
examination foreseen (written or viva-voce, project, thesis etc.), to
submit this plan to the supporting organisation (university) for
modifications and possible additions and then to carry through the study
on the basis of the literature, distance-education courses and other
relevant learning material identified in the plan agreed on in a learning
contract. The Empire State College of the State University of New York
and East London University in the UK are well-known providers of this
type of degree study (Coughlan, 1980; Worth, 1982, and Weingartz,
1991).
Only this third type of independent learning should be described as
really autonomous. I regret having been too generous in my use of the
76
78
79
hours per day or week at other periods. On this issue see further my
Theory and practice of distance education (1995, pp. 165 - 172).
Further-reaching independence
As already indicated (Chapter 5) it is possible to give students the right and
possibility to decide on their own learning objectives not only in contract
learning but also in the study of occasional subject-matter areas. They
may build up individual courses by combining selected course units. This
is possible only if each course unit is provided with detailed statements
of objectives which can be used as bases for the selection (cf. Ljos &
Sandvold, 1983).
Whether a distance-education course caters for and encourages students
independence by making them analyse and synthesise, compare and
draw conclusions, is a function of the presentation and interaction methods
applied. The conversational style recommended above as a consequence
of the empathy approach is highly suitable for guiding students in their
use of various sources and their considerations of the problems inherent
in their study. So are, of course, personal one-to-one interactions with tutors
and peer-group discussions, nowadays easily brought about by e-mail
and computer conferencing.
Contract learning as described above goes very far in relying on the
independence of students. It can be combined with distance education,
but need not necessarily be based on distance-education courses.
Weingartz (1991) illuminates it in relation to distance education.
80
81
Towards the end of the twentieth century several social scientists thus
began looking into distance education from other viewpoints than the
methodological ones which had mainly occupied the distance educators
themselves. The student bodies of particularly the large distanceteaching universities were studied, and so were the institutional concerns of
these universities and their relations to trends in society. Many came to
the conclusion expressed by John Field (1994, p. 9) that commercial,
technological and cultural trends combine with one another to reinforce
the appeal of distance open learning to a consumer market which currently
shows every sign of growth without limit.
If at the outset distance education represented marginal systems for
marginalised sections of the population (Tait, 1994, p. 26) it is now a
widely recognised and respected mode applied by people of practically
all categories. At the university where I have made my latest experiences of
distance education most students hold highly responsible jobs and many
already have a degree behind them before they enrol. They certainly do not
represent an underprivileged group but are in most cases well established
people who study with a view to getting into the front line of new
developments.
It has been argued that research has largely neglected the external forces
influencing and being influenced by distance education (thus Campion &
Guiton, 1991, e. g.) and that emphasis on internal, methodological problems is not enough. Questions concerning power and control, societal
pressures etc. also attracted the attention of several scholars in the
1990s, thus, e. g., Tait (1994), who equates critical approaches to distance
education with the end of innocence, Edwards (1991), Harris (1987),
Raggat (1993), and Faith (1988). When in these contexts the adjective
critical appears it usually refers to criticism of society and social
conditions or the role of distance education in society, not, as expected
82
83
85
Education I, (1) (1986) and IV, (1) (1989) as well as chapter 11 of Holmberg
(1995). Nevertheless we have to acknowledge that there are evident
weaknesses in some fields.
In quickly developing areas more or less new to distance education it is
thus hardly possible to present a cohesive picture of relevant research.
This would seem to apply to the use of information and communication
technology. In the research surveys mentioned above little attention is
paid to the role of technology in distance education. In the first decade of
the 21st century there is, of course, much literature on it, the lasting
relevance of which is very difficult to judge. Apart from the sources looked
into in the previous chapters references should be made to a consecutive
series of articles on this concern in The American Journal of Distance
Education and, further, for example to Cookson (2000) containing a list of
internet-related issues facing higher education and Eisenstadt & Vincent
(1998) elucidating artificial intelligence technologies,
Although computer technology and its applications develop at very high
speed and new techniques can thus be foreseen it is tempting to regard
the present status in this area as representing at least an excellent and
influential intermediary position. What I have in mind are the possibilities
to search the world-wide web for information and literature, to use the
net on the one hand for additions to and corrections of printed learning
material, on the other hand for interaction with individual students by e-mail
and with groups of students by computer conferencing. As shown above
in Chapter 2 a-synchronous computer seminars have particularly great
potentials for adult distance students. Future research in this area will no
doubt bring about new approaches and possibly even better solutions.
An old extremely important concern in which we have too little validated
knowledge is students learning as influenced by distance education. We
86
simply know too little of how students really learn. Marland et al. (1990
and 1992) made small-scale interview studies of the mental processes
which mediate or come between the teaching and the learning outcomes,
such as strategy planning, hypothesising, elaborating and generating.
They reported on interesting findings from the small groups that their
studies necessarily had to be limited to. I wish to plead for more interest
in studies of this kind (as I did at the EDEN research workshop in
Prague in March 2000; Wagner & Szcs, 2000, p. 3). It would seem to
be possible to continue along the lines indicated by developing a series
of questions aiming at finding out how students really learn and by
inspiring colleagues all over the world to carry out interviews on the
basis of these and report on the outcomes to a group of scholars
prepared to collate the replies given. Much work would be required for
such a study including strict guidelines for the interviewing, transcription
of the interviews, schemes for coding replies and the coding itself by
independent coders, constant international co-operation etc. In my view a
study of this kind or any other study contributing real knowledge about
students learning would be worth much demanding work.
Although we are no doubt entitled to claim that distance-education research
has by now reached an acceptable level much remains to be done. My
references to information technology and students learning are simply
examples of personal choices made on the basis of much thinking
and many years of work in distance education. A great number of
other research needs could well be added.
87
10
Summing up
The very gist of the above presentation can, if summarised in just a few
sentences, be described as follows:
Distance education means learning without learners and teachers
meeting face to face or only meeting occasionally to supplement the
teaching and learning that takes place non-contiguously. It can be and
usually is wholly individual, students meeting other students either not at
all or only occasionally at supplementary face-to-face sessions and each
student working at his/her own pace.
Distance education has two constituent elements, on the one hand
presentation of learning matter, i.e. in principle one-way traffic, on the
other hand interaction between learners and teachers and sometimes in
the form of peer-group interaction, i.e. learners interacting with one another.
Special methods and media have been developed both for the subjectmatter presentation and for the interaction; modern information and
communication technology contributes to the effectiveness of distance
education.
There are special organisations set up to develop, apply and administer
distance education. It is their task to co-ordinate and carry out effective
support of the distance learners. They can adequately be called supporting
organisations.
Distance education from its beginning in the 19th century had and still
retains an innovatory character; striking outcomes of this are on the one
hand an almost unparalleled one-to-one relation between individual
learners and individual teachers, on the other hand the possibilities it
offers for individual and self-paced learning.
89
Summing up
90
Summing up
91
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107
108
109
110
111
112
Reprinted from Open Learning, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 47 53, with
permission of the Open University and the editor of Open Learning.
113
Index
acceptability (appropriateness) of
computerised educational services:
15, 28-30
affective domain: 51, 72
(the) American School: 16
American vs. European approaches:
14, 27-28, 37, 38
applications: 12, 20, 21, 25, 27, 39, 40,
49, 85, 86
artificial intelligence: 86
assignments: 11, 21, 57, 58, 59, 62, 63,
67, 78
a-synchronous computer seminars: 24,
57, 61, 86
audio (presentations and interaction):
14, 22, 24, 50, 54, 56, 71
autonomy: 77, 111; see further
independence
behaviourism: 47
chat: 60, 68
class/es/: 12, 21, 38, 40, 56, 110-111
cognitive domain: 72
cognitivism: 47
commentary course/s/: 52
commercialisation: 15
computer technology: 15, 24, 28, 31,
39, 51, 86
computer conferences, seminars: 12,
24, 27, 28, 57, 60, 61, 63, 80, 86
concept of distance education: 11-15
constituent elements: 5, 9, 23, 32, 47, 89
constructivism: 48-49
consultation: 24, 43
contract learning: 54, 76, 80
convergence: 12
conversational approach 40, 43, 44, 46,
50, 53, 80, 83, 90
correspondence education: 9, 14, 71
costs: 52, 69, 74-75
counselling: 12, 16, 25, 41, 61-62, 63,
78, 79
course (subject-matter presentation): 9,
11, 23, 39, 41, 50, 51-52, 54, 60, 64,
68, 69, 89
course development: 41, 51-55, 64-67,
69, 70
course team: 64-66, 69
critical approaches: 82-83
115
Index
Private FernFachhochschule
Darmstadt: 17, 19, 21
problem-oriented learning: 32, 40
professional organisations: 16
programmed learning: 29, 51
psychomotor domain: 72
rapport: 38, 46
readability: 53-54
reminders: 62
satellite communication: 56
search on the web: 32, 33, 86
self-contained course: 51
self-paced learning: 21, 79, 89
self-regulation: 75-80
simulation: 25, 31, 32
single-mode: 10, 19, 21, 69-70
small-scale: 69-70, 109
social objectives: 81, 107
students (target groups): 11-12, 15-16,
19-20, 21, 24, 35, 38-39, 43, 46-48,
56, 58-59, 72-78, 79-80, 82, 86, 90,
111
student-student interaction: 12, 25, 39,
47, 57, 64, 68, see further peer-group
interaction
student support: 33, 39, 79; see further
counselling
student-tutor interaction: 5, 9, 11, 12,
25, 39, 47, 57, 60
study centres: 57
study guide: 52
study skills: 59
submission frequency: 58
supervised distance learning: 12, 20, 90
supporting organisation: 23, 25, 39, 41,
44, 46-47, 57, 60-61, 76-79,
synchronous interaction: 57, 60; see
further synchronous seminars
116
Index
telephone: 12, 56, 57, 68, 78,
text: 51, 52, 54, 61, 66,
theory: 6-7, 22, 35-38, 40-41, 42-52,
45- 50, 85, 90
theory of distance education: 35-46,
transactional distance: 35, 77
tutorial service, tutoring system: 58
two-way traffic: 9, 22, 23, 39, 47, 56-62
typologies of distance education: 70
117
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